If you run a chiropractic clinic, you have probably been pitched an “AI receptionist” in the past year. The prices you hear range wildly, because the products are very different. Some are software you set up yourself. Others, like ours, are a done-for-you service. This guide breaks down what you actually pay for, what drives the price, and how to tell whether it will pay off for your clinic.
What are you actually paying for?
An AI receptionist has two kinds of cost: getting it right, and keeping it running.
Setup covers the work before a patient ever hears it. That means listening to how your phones work today, writing scripts for your clinic (greetings, new-patient questions, your booking rules, what it should never say), connecting it to your phone system and scheduling software, and testing it with dozens of calls. Our setup starts at $1,500.
The monthly fee covers the phone and AI infrastructure, the privacy setup (in the US, every vendor touching patient data under a Business Associate Agreement), monitoring, and the ongoing work of reading call summaries and improving scripts. Our plans:
| Plan | Monthly | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $600 | 1 location, inbound calls |
| Growth | $1,000 | Multi-doctor or 2–3 locations, plus reactivation |
| Pro | from $1,500 | Multi-location or large teams, outbound recalls, insurer follow-up, back-office automation, reporting |
Self-serve software can look cheaper on paper. The difference is who does the scripting, integration, testing and tuning. With a self-serve tool, that is you or your office manager.
What makes the price go up or down?
A few things change the work involved:
- Number of doctors and locations. Each doctor may have different case types, hours and appointment lengths. Each location adds phone numbers and routing.
- Booking integration. If your practice-management system offers an open booking API, the assistant can book directly. If not, it takes structured booking requests your team confirms, which is simpler to set up but leaves a step for your front desk.
- Case types. Personal-injury and auto-accident intake needs more careful scripting than a standard adjustment booking.
- Extra workflows. Reactivation campaigns, outbound recall calls and insurer follow-up are separate pieces of work.
How does it compare with a receptionist or an answering service?
Here is a plain comparison. We have left blanks where we do not have reliable numbers rather than guess.
| AI receptionist (done for you) | Answering service | Part-time receptionist | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours covered | 24/7 | Usually 24/7 | Scheduled shifts only |
| Books appointments | Yes, or structured requests | Usually messages only | Yes |
| Calls at once | Many | Depends on staffing | One |
| Cost | From $600/mo plus setup | [NEEDS SOURCE] | Median pay about $22/hour (BLS) |
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts median US receptionist pay at about $22 an hour. A part-time receptionist covering lunch and early evenings is a real option, and some clinics should do exactly that. The difference is that a person covers set hours, takes one call at a time, and needs cover when they are sick or on holiday.
An answering service will usually pick up, but in our experience many take messages rather than book. A message left at 7 pm is a callback your team makes the next morning, by which time the patient may have booked elsewhere.
How do you work out whether it will pay off?
Start with the cost of a missed call. Chiropractic Economics reports an average chiropractic visit fee of about $60.30. A new patient, though, is rarely one visit. Over a care plan, a new patient is worth many visits, which is why our calculator uses a new-patient value you can adjust (the default is $650, which you should replace with your own figure).
Then estimate how many new patients you lose. A simple formula:
Calls per month × share unanswered × share that are new patients × share who would book × new-patient value
With 300 calls a month, 25% unanswered, 15% of those being new patients, half of whom would have booked, and a $650 new-patient value, that is about $3,656 a month in lost new-patient revenue. That is an illustrative estimate, not a promise, but you can see how quickly it outpaces a $600 monthly fee.
It matters because callers do not wait. In CallRail’s 2025 research, 82% of callers said they would call a competitor if they could not get through. The US has about 39,000 chiropractic businesses (VerticalIQ, 2026), so in most towns there is another clinic a short drive away.
For the full method, read how many patient calls your clinic misses, and what it costs.
What hidden costs should you ask about?
Before you sign with anyone, including us, ask:
- Is there a per-minute or per-call charge? A busy month should not surprise you.
- Who writes and updates the scripts? If the answer is “you do”, budget your own time.
- Will you sign a BAA? In the US, any vendor handling patient information on your behalf should. See what a BAA covers for AI phone agents.
- How long is the contract? Ours is month-to-month after setup.
- What happens if it does not work? If we do not recover more than our fee in 60 days, you can cancel.
- Do I have to change software? You should not. We work alongside systems such as ChiroTouch.
Which plan fits a typical chiropractic clinic?
A single-doctor clinic that mainly misses lunch and after-hours calls usually fits Starter. A clinic with two or more doctors, or two or three locations, usually needs Growth, because routing rules matter more and reactivation of patients who drop out of care plans adds real value. Personal-injury-heavy practices with lots of paperwork often benefit from Pro, which adds insurer and attorney follow-up and reporting.
If you are not sure, the free audit answers it. We call your clinic at busy times, review your call and booking data, and tell you plainly which plan fits, or whether you need us at all. See AI automation for chiropractic clinics for the workflows we set up.